The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig; a Novel eBook

The idea of revolt, of refusing to go, appealed to
her first anger strongly. But, on consideration,
she saw that merely asserting her rights would not
be enough—­that she must train him to respect
them. If she refused to go he would simply leave
her; yes, he was just the man, the wild man, to do
precisely that disgraceful thing. And she would
be horribly afraid to spend the night alone in those
woods with only the guides and Selina, not to speak
of facing the morrow—­for he might refuse
to take her back! Where would she turn in that
case? What would her grandmother say? Who
would support her in making such a scandal and giving
up a husband for reasons that could not be made impressive
in words though they were the best of all reasons
in terms of feeling? No, if she gave him up she
would be absolutely alone, condemned on every hand,
in the worst possible position. Then, too, the
break was unattractive for another reason. Though
she despised herself for her weakness, she did not
wish to give up the man who had given her that brief
glimpse of happiness she had dreamed as one dreams
an impossibility. Did not wish? Could not—­would
not—­give him up. “I belong to
him!” she thought with a thrill of ecstasy and
of despair.

“But he’d better be careful!” she
grumbled. “If I should begin to dislike
him there’d be no going back.” And
then it recurred to her that this would be as great
a calamity of loss for her as for him —­and
she went at her packing in a better humor. “I’ll
explain to him that I yield this once, but—­”
There she stopped herself with a laugh. Of what
use to explain to him?—­him who never listened
to explanations, who did not care a fig why people
did as he wished, but was content that they did.
As for warning him about “next time”—­how
ridiculous! She could hear his penetrating, rousing
voice saying: “We’ll deal with ‘next
time’ when it comes.”

CHAPTER XXV

MRS. JOSHUA CRAIG

“We change at Albany,” said he when they
were on the train, after a last hour of mad scramble,
due in part to her tardiness, in the main to the atmosphere
of hysteric hustle and bustle he created as a precaution.

“At Albany!” she exclaimed. “Why,
when do we get there?”

“At midnight.”

“At midnight!” It was the last drop in
the cup of gall, she thought. “Why, we’d
get to Lenox, or to some place where we’d have
to change again, long before morning! Josh, you
must be out of your senses. It’s a perfect
outrage!”

“Best I could do,” said he, laughing uproariously
and patting her on the back. “Cheer up.
You can sleep on my shoulder until we get to Albany.”

“We will go on to New York,” said she
stiffly, “and leave from there in the morning.”

“Can’t do it,” said he. “Must
change at Albany. You ought to learn to control
your temper over these little inconveniences of life.
I’ve brought a volume of Emerson’s essays
along and I’ll read to you if you don’t
want to sleep.”